I Point at the Parents

Why do parents like the idea of forming together to increase the list of banned books so much? Probably because they feel like books without rainbows, unicorns and sprinkles is corrupting the young mind, opening the young minds up to the horrors of the real world situations such as gays, racism, other forms of discrimination and other negative things that some people may find unmoral. Why do we allow a nation that represents the freedom of speech so much to ban a book that an author who put hours, days, weeks, months on certain books just to take them off the shelves in schools and libraries? The answer is quite simple, to promote ignorance, to keep racial and sexual discrimination breathing and for the people to never make steps forward toward peace in our lovely nation that’s why. Parents need to open their superficial minds up, and realize that the kids are our future they need to encourage the kids to read, and yes, read the banned books, because the topics and stories of those said books would open the mind of those children encouraging them to do big things at a younger age, so when they’re older they will be much wiser than a child that doesn’t read often. That brings me to another point children these days are not reading nearly as much as they used to do in the past studies published by research group People for Education, “shows the number of Ontario Grade 3 students who say they like to read dropped from 75 per cent in 1998-99 to 50 per cent in 2010-11”. This is a problem if less people are reading then that promotes ignorance at a high grade leading to students graduating high school with reading skills lower than their grade level. That in the end leads to the increase of college dropout in America, because they can’t handle the reading rate, the amount to be read for class and the difficultly of the text being assigned. These are huge problems we as Americans must face in a world that promotes TV, computers and simplified living the parents need to encourage them to read these dark, and more interest topics that are controversial in order for them to spark that desire to learn more in schools and to leave this country in a better position to be a smarter nation.

Call to Action

So we’ve already established banned books as being a horrible thing to do, but now it’s our turn to help promote a new world without them. We need to present this problem to the everyday people to reveal this national problem no one speaks about. We can start by speaking with our local government to see where they stand on the situation. Next, we could visit local schools all stages (elementary, middle etc.) and do public speaking to welcome the idea of decreasing the amount of sheltered education, racial tension and culture divide of the American citizens that is occurring in every state in this lovely country.                       

The people need to become aware that this government is sheltering our country’s education system by choosing what it does and doesn’t teach the students that attend school. This country needs to be aware of the good, bad and the ugly, because we can’t live in a world where we just think this country is perfect when in fact this country is really messed up with very crucial historically moments in our past. Also, with all the cases that fall under the line with the Trayvon Martin case and many others that is a huge if not colossal problem that occurs along every street of every city of every state. Racial and Cultural discrimination comes from poor education and lack of understanding of one’s cultural background. In an article written on Yale’s Daily News saying, “Times are changing. A liberal arts education is part of that process. There is room for evolving models of education to change the nation's perceptions of its own interests”. This quote means that today’s morals and social system was completely different 50 years ago so their view on things now is invalid and not up to date. People need to believe children who read more banned books will more likely accept certain groups of people due to interaction at a young age which is a great thing. We need parents to stop being so superficial when it comes to cultures and beliefs so they can realize not everyone agrees with them on certain topics and can learn to coexist with the reality of education.

Whose Behind the Curtain?

The process of banning books is a necessity in Americans society, because it helps protect our children from material that is hazardous to their minds while growing up going to school. See this is where it is a necessity to flip the script banned books are some of the greatest books ever written, but just because they have a few vulgar moments, sex and an inappropriate word here and there doesn’t mean it isn’t benefitting the children, because kids must realize that people curse, do bad things, people are different and so many other things, so by allowing them to read books of any content would help a child out by becoming more accepting to the world and finding themselves. Also, the Board of Education was talking about the books that are currently banned and said,” "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and just plain filthy." They said the books contained "obscenities, blasphemies, brutality and perversion beyond description," and concluded that "it is our duty, our moral obligation, to protect the children in our schools from this moral danger as surely as from physical and medical dangers."” This being said this shows that the people on the Board of Education majorly are close minded, judgmental, conservative and clean cut, because they hate curse words, believes the acts that don’t involve what they do in their everyday lives is vulgar compared to what they do and based judgment off old practices from their times, but in reality they need to realize the world is changing, accepting, embracing things that aren’t considered great in the world, but showing them light gains awareness to children.  So who is the leading culprit behind all these books being banned? Simple, majority of the people reporting banned books are the parents of the children an article said, Parents were responsible for 57% of such challenges between 1990 and 2008, and an astonishing 70% of the challenges involved books that were either in a school classroom or a school library”. That being said, it is obvious that parents have a huge interaction with the process of banning books and majority of books being banned are in our schools which is another problem. This alone would create a huge problem in America due to the fact that people have different beliefs, standards, backgrounds and many others would only create a confusion of what should be banned and what should be kept on the shelf, because some may not oppose homosexuality, but hates sex, whereas one may condone curse words but despises the gay community. These variables create a huge thick line between what could be allowed and what is inappropriate for children. Parents need to accept that writers are Americans too, so they need to accept that not everything is sunshine and flowers, and hopefully see that books with certain topics aren’t created to corrupt children, but to enlighten them on the truth of the world.

Turn the Page

Banned book is a critical situation that has been occurring in America for a very long time. The history of banned books goes beyond American's history by dating back to the 1500's with members of the catholic churches having huge problems with certain writing pieces and called it Librorum Index of Prohibitorum that influenced all the countries that follow Catholic practices. Back in the day social, racial, sex, and religious dive were present, and actually quite common which allowed the idea of banned books the ability to fuse in the brains of citizens living during these times making it accepted to ban books. Banned books still occur throughout parts of the world in Europe, Asia and very present in America. This is a huge problem that is occurring in our nation simply, because this is a new century. Times have changed from being 13 colonies with different beliefs and very tied with religion with a few different types of people. Now we are a melting pot where you can look forward see a Vietnamese man over there, and then turns there is a black man then before you leave you see two Italian white males just hanging out by the door talking to their Jewish friend just chilling. My point is this nation is way too diverse to have banned books. What one feels offensive another person believes that people need to be aware of this certain thing or to teach children, does this bother you? I know it kills me to think about this situation, but in reality who do people who ban books think they are? I believe they are close minded discriminating bastards that have a superficial mind-state that only promotes the idea of discrimination. That my friend is wrong, and I believe our country should not have banned books. Even though some would say we are doing this for the children of our lovely nation to ensure they grow up not condemned, but in reality I feel like if we allow books to not be banned it adds more opportunity to the new generations in America to become more aware, understanding and hopefully accepting of other people that are not similar to you. 

Banned Books a Motif of US Society

Banned books in America is a serious issue that this country is facing today locally or basically in almost every state. What is a banned book? Banned books are published book that were once on shelves of libraries, stores and other locations involving books that have been removed from the open eye due to the content that was inside of the book. Just that being said it reveals an issue underlying beneath the whole idea behind banned books that draws questions to the mind. Such as isn't it against the constitution to censor what someone wrote in their own words no matter how vulgar the book is? Also, is this hurting the future generate of our nation by creating a sheltered America that prevents them from understanding different types of people or issue that actually happen such as rape, incest, murder and so on.

I feel like banning books is only a negative thing it makes our children unaware of today's societal problems, its unconstitutional by censoring paid authors by not allowing them of all people to speak their mind and it reveals who the government favors when banning certain type of books created bias decisions that have no ultimate impact to all the people in the country just the ones who hate certain things. People Apposing me would say children shouldn't be exposed to homosexuality, incest and other topics like that at a young age, and that this information corrupts their minds resulting in hurting them. With that said i would have to disagree completely with America today this country is so diverse that kids being ignorant cannot be accepted, also the presence of these books on the shelves doesn't mean your kid haves to read it, but what if he does want to read about a certain controversial topic and when he goes to check it out its not there? Yeah, he'd be screwed. Books are meant for informing people or opening people to new perspectives. In an article about banned books Erin Manning said, "Parents were responsible for 57% of such challenges between 1990 and 2008, and an astonishing 70% of the challenges involved books that were either in a school classroom or a school library." which is astonishing to see that such a high percent of books being removed from the place you're supposed to be learning the most. I think this country need to accept the fact that America is not the same as it used to be times change, religion change, language change, and many more things change so this means a new change in the libraries and book shelves needs to be made in order to steer our country back in the right direction.

Manning, Erin. "Parents Must Protect Children from Offensive Material in Books." Book Banning. Ed. Thomas Riggs. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. At Issue. Rpt. from "It's Not Censorship, It's Parenting!" MercatorNet. 2009. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 13 Apr. 2012.